seapunk

When I started compiling a list of art events for this week, I thought “this is going to be slim pickings.” There’s a stereotype that New York in the Summer sucks because everyone’s gone to the beach except tourists who stupidly vacation in Manhattan instead of also going to the beach. But that’s totally not true!

There’s plenty of cool stuff to do in New York this week, including a storefront installation from Jeff De Golier that opened today at FOUR A.M. Wendy White (pictured above) has a solo show of California-dreamin’ surf-inspired paintings (for those of you who are thinking longingly of the seashore) at Eric Firestone Loft. Wednesday, Xaviera Simmons unveils a new series of body-centric work at The Kitchen and Booth Gallery is (by happy coincidence) hosting a panel discussion on the future of figuration right afterwards. We’re looking at two group shows with big-name, smart artists at Team Gallery and Pace. Friday, The National Sculpture Conference kicks-off its three-day fest of all things sculpture, from figure sculpting classes to a supplies vendor fair on Saturday and 3D printing on Sunday. Friday night, take in a show all about children from Trevor Shimizu (there’s a Jessica Alba tribute!) and a group show at Lehmann Maupin featuring French-Algerian wunderkind Kader Attia alongside Tim Rollins & K.O.S. and Mickalene Thomas.

Saturday the Queens Museum promises to be “overrun by hoards of punks” for a celebration of all things Ramones, including a flea market. Then bounce down to Brooklyn for a group show at American Medium. But the real party happens Sunday, when a mysterious fest thrown by some very arty queers takes over a secret loft in Gowanus. If you’re not exhausted after that, be sure to check out Nancy Shaver’s solo show at Derek Eller—she makes diorama-like assemblages that make boxy grids fun again. And really, fun is the name of the game this week.

For months, we at AFC have been talking amongst ourselves about Kevin Yuen Kit Lo’s fantastic essay The Propaganda of Pantone: Colour and Subcultural Sublimation. Lo meticulously dissects Pantone’s appropriation of internet subculture aesthetics, wherein the company strips the popular color schemes of #seapunk, vaporwave, and the latest batch of social-media-influenced cyberfeminism of their political context and reduces them to signifiers of trendiness.

So when I stumbled upon this Young Offenders post about LA artist Blake Kathryn, which describes her work as “cyber-vaporwave-noventeras-3D”, I was excited to share it. Beyond these GIFs, Kathryn’s still 3D renders present idealized visions of art-historical femininity, which give the impression that things are a little too perfect. They’re beautiful but a little off—mashing-up classical sculpture, net art, consumerism, and even the ubiquitous philodendron.

Adam Szymczyk, the director of Documenta 14, gets a write up in the Times for ‘his championing of unknown artists.’ He’s curated solo shows by Aleksandra Domanovic, Moyra Davey, and Lucy Skaer, so that’s a good track record. [The New York Times]

Seapunk aesthetic for your tombstone? That and much more at Funeral Concept, a place that appears to specialize in the funerary objects for the young. [Funeral Concept]

Paris Photo, which concluded Sunday, drew over 55,000 visitors this year. Carole Naggar wraps it up on TIME Light Box with a selection of mostly black and white documentary-style images from the 20th century, and notes that it rained inside the fair briefly. [TIME]

On that topic, Wired did a Q&A with Leslie Martin, publisher of the Aperture book program. She makes it clear that the publishing industry is in flux: “There are 20 books in the Paris-Photo/Aperture First Book shortlist and 14 of them are self-published.” [Wired]

Looks like the Ad Reinhardt show organized by critic Robert Storr at David Zwirner is a must see. [The New York Times]

An interesting concept from the Times: Retro Report; The truth now about stories then. The short video segments cover stories about 10-15 years old—the stuff that hasn’t quite left your consciousness, but isn’t exactly fresh either. Y2K is a pretty good example of this, a story that lives somewhere on the edge of nostalgia. [Retro Report]

Profiles are big this week. New York Magazine has taken on meme-creator BuzzFeed and its founder Jonah Peretti as a case study in too big to fail. Is $46 million in venture capital worth it? Well, maybe thanks to BuzzFeed’s “native advertising” approach where it’s become nearly impossible at times to distinguish advertising from actual content on the blog. Actually, all this talk about how novel advertising strategies are carving out a niche for online content is pretty big right now; that’s the focus of The New Yorker’s VICE profile from last week. Whew. [New York Magazine]

More and more mid-level dealers are participating in the smaller art fairs popping up around the country. Look no further than this week’s Dallas Art Fair, which boasts New York galleries ranging from CANADA to Marlborough. The SEVEN art fair (BravinLee programs, Catharine Clark Gallery, Inman Gallery, Pierogi, P.P.O.W., Ronald Feldman, and Postmasters) is launching its Dallas debut in Dallas, too. [SEVEN]

My eyes are glazing over this fashion label’s blog full of selfies taken by depressed goth kids who have yet to get over their fascination with The Mickey Mouse Club, but maybe that’s because they’re still in it. [nvrmnd]

China is opening up its business practices to let Christie’s become the first auction company “granted license to operate independently in mainland China”. The first auction will be held in the fall of this year. [Twitter, via @KellyCrowWSJ and @ChristiesInc]

When stand up comedians look at art, they’re no different from the rest of us; they like to talk about tits. [“What Am I Looking At?”]

Now that we can reproduce and remix virtually any picture, is there any point in trying to trace those images to a source? I asked myself this question after having read that a few folks on Tumblr were in a huff about Rihanna. They didn’t like that Rihanna used a blue-screen video with bunch of Greek statue heads, bluish looking water, and pink skies on Saturday Night Live, because it resembled an aesthetic journalists have dubbed “Seapunk.” (It’s also a musical style defined by its fusion of 90’s house, and the past 15 years of pop and R&B.)

Jacob Ciocci, an artist whose process runs the gamut from blatantly appropriating imagery to producing all-original content, didn’t seem to have much sympathy for artists like Jerome LOL, ZOMBELLE, and Bebe Zeva, each of whom is affiliated with the aesthetic. “If you do not want your image to travel somewhere far away, do not release it to the cloud,” he warned in a recent blog post. The more an image is seen, the more online authorship tends to disappear.